Snorting Smarties: Eat. Don't snort. Unless you want nasal maggots

A girl snorts Smarties, a practice that educators and doctors are warning against.

A girl snorts Smarties, a practice that educators and doctors are warning against.

Jenn Harris

Snorting Smarties is an actual thing on YouTube. Teenagers are filming themselves crushing the popular pastel-colored candy and snorting it.

Snorting the candy isn't exactly new -- some of the videos on YouTube were posted as long as six years ago -- but Scarborough Middle School in Maine recently issued an informational document to parents warning them of the dangers of snorting the candy. According to the document, students at the school have been snorting and "smoking" the candy. The smoking involves putting the powder in their mouths and attempting to blow it out of their noses.

Is there a Smarties high? From the videos, it appears the answer is no. Although "burning" is mentioned.

"We have experienced an unsafe new trend among our middle school students -- smoking or snorting the candy, Smarties," reads the document. The document goes on to warn that the candy can "act like razor blades" if not crushed up finely, can lead to infection and scarring of the nasal cavity. It quotes Dr. Oren Friedman of the Mayo Clinic on the possibility of nasal maggots "feeding on the sugary dust wedged inside the nose."

In one video on YouTube, posted above, a girl appears to be crushing some of the candies on a desk during class.

"I wonder if you can OD on this?" says an off-camera voice.

"I bet you just get a sugar rush," says another student.

So what exactly are you snorting when you inhale an orange-cream, pineapple, cherry, grape, strawberry or orange Smartie? The candy wafers are made of dextrose, citric acid, calcium stearate, colors red 40 lake, yellow 5 lake, yellow 6 lake, blue 2 lake and "natural and artificial flavors" according to the ingredient list.